Date : 2023-09-15

Venue : Online

Marriage Unbound: State Law, Power, and Inequality in Contemporary China

• Date: 11 October 2023 (Wed)
• Time: 10:30-11:30 HK Time
• Venue: ONLINE ONLY
• Registration: https://shorturl.at/mDGI1

Abstract

On a hot summer day, Wang Guiping attended her divorce trial at the Xiqing People’s Tribunal. Taking an unfaithful spouse to court would, Guiping thought, help her end a hopeless relationship and actualize her lawful rights upon divorce. Later that day, Guiping would find herself betrayed not only by her husband, but by the court system and her own legal counsel. Taking this case as a point of departure, Ke Li recounts decades-long research on divorce litigation in rural China. Ultimately, this talk articulates a firm belief: divorce, seemingly prosaic, offers a unique window onto phenomena of great importance to sociologists, political scientists, sociolegal researchers, and China scholars.

Speaker's Biography

Ke Li is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the John Jay College of the City University of New York. Her research focuses on law, legal professions, courts, and women’s rights in China. In 2022, her book, Marriage Unbound: State Law, Power, and Inequality in Contemporary China, was published by Stanford University Press. So far, it has won four book awards, issued by the Law and Society Association, the American Political Science Association, and the American Sociological Association, respectively.